State of Origin

June 5, 2009

On Monday while I was watching the Australian Sportscenter, They were talking about a big rugby match called State of Origins. They didn't give me any more details on what the game was about. They just talked about who was going to be able to play and who was injured. So me being curious, I decided to go on the wikipedia and look it up and see what it was all about.

According to wikipedia, this is a three game series that pits all the players from the Australian state of Queensland against all the players from New South Wales. If you wanted to look at it in American terms, think of an All-Star game or a Pro Bowl. But in this series of games, all these players are playing for their home states and bragging rights. So unlike the typical All-Star game, these guys are going as hard as humanly possible and trying to hurt the players on the other team. (I've heard that they get into fights in these match-ups. There's nothing like seeing people wreck it out on TV)

I didn't know if the people in New Zealand would actually tune in to this, because it was an Australian event. However I was invited to watch the game with a few of the boys on the team and such. So I decided why not, plus it will give me a better view of what rugby was all about instead of watching it from home and not really know what's going on.

You can think of Rugby as football in that they are running and trying to tackle each other. However there aren't that many stoppages in rugby except for the occasion video replay. Also there is no quarterback that you have to be mindful of, you get to just hit whoever has the ball. The rules are that a try is worth 4 pts and a goal is worth two. Wherever you score the try, that's where you would have to kick your goal, which in our terms would mean an extra point (two for them though). So while trying to score a try, you would want to get it as close to the middle of the park as possible. Oh and you have to touch the ball into the ground to get a try, it's not enough to just run into the end zone.

The game was pretty exciting. Even though for the most part I did not know what was going on. I didn't know which was a good play or which was a bad one. The guys did help me out by explaining more about what was good and bad. And after a while I got very much into the game. Queensland won the first match-up 28-18. The next game will be in Sydney, home territory for New South Wales, hopefully it will be a very exciting game because I'll be following it closely.


Everything is going fine with me. The work permit still hasn't came in yet so during the days I'm just trying to find things to do around the house. Which means I'm more likely on the computer searching things on facebook. I'm also trying to get this SanDisk to work. It is a chip that I put on my phone to save pictures on and I'm trying to put them on my computer but I'm having no luck whatsoever in doing so. So the pictures are going to have to wait. Until I google the problem and see what I can do about it.

We have another road game tomorrow against Ellerslie. They are a mid-table team but it is in their home park and anything can happen away from home. I'm not overly worried about it. If we play like the way I know we can then this should be an easy win and another $50 win bonus woo! LOL

I'm still waiting for the homesickness to occur. I'm not really waiting for it but it always happens when you know you are going to stay at a distant place for a long extent amount of time. Another week has went by and I am continuing to love this place by the moment. Also another thing that might be helping me avoid the homesickness is that almost everyone I know has spread out to do things with their lives. Aaron is back in Chapel Hill, Will is going to New York, Juan is in DC. It seems like everyone is making moves with their lives and I think that I should do the same thing and try to make something out of myself.....


Plus the fish and chips here are bangin.....